The Beautiful Transition

My dearest friend, White Diary asked me to take care of her Kadipatta plant (Curry leaves) and other plants till the time she finds larger space to keep them. I was more than happy to take them and keep them on my window grill.

Hungry Caterpillars

After a month, suddenly I noticed there were caterpillars on the plant. Oh My God was my reaction! The Common Mormon. There were three. I missed the first two stages before it became a caterpillar. I kept the plant indoors to not let the birds eat it and kept a close eye on them.


There was too much excitement that WD and me would discuss its process. It was indeed thrilling. Never seen this before. Out of the three caterpillars, one died :( that is when I took the plant and kept it right in front of my eyes! Didn't want to lose the other two.

This is the stage of Pupation. Before it gets into the stage of pupating, the caterpillar stops eating completely. They don't move either. This is when I thought they were probably dead. But they weren't. I touched it a little, it wriggled. I researched a little about their cycle and that was a relief and a beauty. The pupa hung itself, suspended on two silk strings...reminded me of Spider-man! This is also called the Chrysalis. Butterflies do not form cocoons, moths do.

After a week it started turning black, which meant the end of the pupal stage and a butterfly would emerge. Yay! 

Common Mormon Butterfly Emerges :)

                             And here emerges the Beautiful Butterfly and stretches its wings.                                    

Pretty Things!

And there were two. Flying around in the room. I played a lot with them. Held it, let it sit on me, and then I had to let them go out in the open... to fly to freedom, to live and continue the cycle of life!

Research source: http://www.butterflyschool.org/new/meta.html, http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Papilio_polytes/,  blogs, images. 

A moment

The waves, the full moon, lit cigarettes and random conversations.

That was all we needed. Time for ourselves. Time to halt. Time for silence.

There was enough silence to hear each other's thoughts. It was beautiful.

We looked into the dark infinite sea. The reflections of the city lights. 

The waves hitting the shore. A thought each time. 

We wanted to sit there endlessly.

Maybe not talk. Just continue to listen to the sound of the waves.

It was a night that stayed with us, as we walked away.

Exploring Bombay- Banganga

Banganga, Walkeshwar.

So, my friends and me had an exploration after a long time. This time it was a visit to the Banganga tank at Walkeshwar, Malabar hill. It is the much heard of place as there used to be musical concerts that took place there called the Banganga Festival.

We went there and we saw so many things happening there. There were kids playing cricket and an enthusiast foreigner who played with them.

There were a group young people, I'm guessing students photographing different things around the place.

There were also a group of women who were singing and very well.

 The mythological story that goes with this place is, Lord Ram, was tired and asked his brother to bring him some water. So Lakshman instantly shot an arrow into the ground, and water gushed forth from the ground, creating a tributary of the Ganges, which flows over a thousand miles away, hence its name, Ban Ganga. Source: Wikipedia

As it is supposed to be a holy place, there were a lot of temples around at every nook and corner.

There were ducks and geese. It was amazing to see them and when we went close to them they were all running away.

It's such a great place. Quiet, Peaceful, Enjoyable.

You can just sit there for hours.

The only turn off was the water was not clean, well that was expected.

This time in our expedition, our dear friend Maria joined us who we met after years as she was away. So this was our reunion. :)

The Swing

This reminds me of...

How peaceful it used to be when I used to sit on the swing..

How beautiful it felt when I closed my eyes and I pushed myself up above the ground imagining that I was flying..

Those days where I had so much time to play..

The fights I had to just get the swing..

The fall I had from the swing and I was held and caressed by my mother..

The circles made intertwining the iron chains and getting giddy after that..

The challenges taken of who jumped the furthest from the swing..

The girl talks about toys and boys..

The time that singing and swinging was so much fun..

The wait for the evening to just go and swing..

This picture was taken at Priya's garden.

First day of school

Hand prints....this is what we did on the first day of school.. more than my students I think I had so much fun doing this :)

We even made smiley jam butter sandwiches... and ate them along with my students... hee...

My first days of school were never like this... but now I get to do this with my students... and have a li'l fun of my own...well more fun...

Looking forward for a fun learning academic year ahead..

Happiness to u all :)

Cheers,

Scribbles!

Six feet under

Entrance to a burial ground.
Khudanpur-Paratwada, Amravati District.
Maharashtra.

Pic by D.N. Oct '09

Gurupurnima

My First card as a teacher. Made by my students on Gurupurnima :)

The long awaited rains

The rains are here.

Refreshing, rejuvenating, rejoicing.

Cleansing the mind, cleansing the soul.

Bringing that little happiness I longed for.

Like every monsoon it has made me happier!

Understanding Children

"Sometimes we forget that children have just arrived on the earth. They are a little like aliens, coming into beings as bundles of energy and pure potential, here on some exploratory mission and they are just trying to learn what it means to be human. For some reason Dennis and I reached out into the universe and found each other. Never really know how or why. And discovered that I can love an alien and he can love a creature. And thats weird enough for both of us."
From the movie Martian Child (2007).
This is written in the book that David the adoptive father writes about his adopted son who thinks has come from Mars. A must see movie.